A hairdresser from Croydon has vowed to kill British jihadists after travelling to the Middle East to take up arms against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

Mama Kurda, 26, who usually works in a hair salon in Clapham south London, has swapped his scissors for an AK47 rifle having joined the Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting in Iraq.

Born in Kurdistan he moved to the UK with his family when he was aged 15.

He has been fighting with Kurdish forces since July after being horrified by the actions of Isil forces, who have targeted the Kurds, which include Yazidis, Christians, Jews and Sunni and Shia Muslims.

Mr Kurda said he hoped his actions in fighting against the jihadists would help protect Britain as well as his own people.

He told the Daily Mirror: “I am proud to be British and fighting against terrorists to help defend the UK. Especially when I read that 500 people with the terrorists are from Britain. I have to show the world there is a British citizen fighting against them.”

Asked what he would do if he came face to face with one of the British jihadists fighting for Isil, he said: "I would kill him."

Mr Kurda was with the forces that helped recapture the strategically important Mosul Dam with the aid of American air strikes.

He admitted that going into combat for the first time had been frightening, but he said the actions of Isil left with no choice but to fight.

He said: “They are raping Kurdish women and killing Kurdish kids. But they are not only a threat to Kurdish people. Once they control here they could attack Europe and the UK.”

He went on: “I was pretty scared. They come to be killed. What I saw from their eyes is they come to be killed 200 per cent because they are brainwashed they will go straight to heaven.”

Mama Kurda (C)

The former hairdresser, who studied engineering at college, said he could not understand why young British Muslims were signing up to fight for such extremists.

He said: “What makes these Brits fight with these guys? Most of them are young and can be easily brainwashed. I have seen them dead. I have seen them carrying pills and they are drugged up.

“The things they are doing are unbelievable. If they are not on drugs they can’t do that.”

Mr Kurda said he was compelled to go to the war zone after seeing the relentless march of Isil across his homeland.

He said: “People say ‘If you have a British passport, why are you doing this? You could get out’. But I am fighting to save people’s lives.”

But he insisted that once Isil had been defeated he was looking forward to returning to his old life of hairdressing in south London.

He said: “This is not about politics for me. This is temporary, then I want to go back to my normal job. London is a big part of my life. I love the UK.”

Despite fighting against a brutal terror group, Mr Kurda could still face problems when he returns to the UK as fighting overseas could technically be considered a breach of UK terror laws.

A spokesman for the Home Office said: “UK laws makes provisions to deal with conflicts in different ways. Fighting in a foreign war is not automatically an offence but will depend on the nature of the conflict and the individuals own activities.”